


Jason, Medea and Achilles

by nonky



Category: Nancy Drew (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21513688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonky/pseuds/nonky
Summary: "I think it's dangerous to say closure comes from discovery, Nancy. If you really believe your father did something awful to Lucy Sable, you'd have asked him by now. I think it's much more likely, just knowing the man a little bit, he ended up pulled into it through his job. That makes him another victim, and maybe the only person left who would get locked up for something a much richer, more dangerous person has done."Spoilers up to episode 6, and a bit AU from promos of episode 7.
Relationships: Nancy Drew/Ned Nickerson
Kudos: 6
Collections: Nancy Drew TV Series (2019)





	Jason, Medea and Achilles

Owen was a good movie date. He bought popcorn and a small bag of jelly beans to share. He talked her into a romantic comedy that wasn't great, but broke up the ugly thoughts running her mind. Nothing about it hit any sore spots of her own reality, and it washed over her forgettably. Nancy hadn't pictured a date with him, but she knew it wouldn't have been in her work uniform after a long cry. 

He was quiet, and when she glanced at him he would smile but not speak. She'd assumed he would try whispered conversation or an arm around her. Instead he was companionably silent but aware of her notice. 

She left the movie feeling better, and they walked out into a breezy evening. The summer was ending, and Nancy couldn't be disappointed time was passing. She was hoping it was true that time healed. 

"Sorry about the happy ending," Owen said. "Turns out those are popular."

"Very gauche," she said, affecting a snobby turn of her head. "But it's not your fault. Thanks for the movie, Owen."

He still had the bag of jelly beans, and held it out for her to help herself. Nancy took a few and he put the bag in her free hand. 

"That had an air of finality to it I think means you're about to go see a man about a horse," he told her. "Not a Pegasus this time, so I know I'm not going to be able to help with that. But never let it be said I left a lady without dinner. I think I might have helped, a little bit?"

"More than a little bit," Nancy told him, watching his face as he broke out into one of his beaming smiles. "You always seem to help. I know I tend to disappear right after a favour, but I do appreciate all of them."

He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged modestly. "I'm not really doing anything except giving you honest answers. I'd want the same. So, in the gentlemanly spirit of the afternoon, can I mention I am staying at the Marvin guest house? If you're not ready to go home tonight, there are two spare bedrooms and a guarantee of edible scrambled eggs for breakfast."

Going home with Owen would be hard to explain. Nancy knew she should face her father but she wasn't ready to ask the questions that kept piling up about his history with the Hudson family. She didn't want to hear him lie, and she thought it was the only possibility unless she knew more to show she wasn't just fishing. 

"I think all scrambled eggs are edible," she said. "It would be complicated using your guest room, but I'll remember your invitation."

If nothing else, choosing to stay with Owen might mean Nick was done with her. Nancy was upset with her boyfriend and she felt it was justified. She was also aware Nick had been worried, and she hadn't been listening to his concerns all that graciously. 

"You do that. No need to call ahead, and I'm sure you know the place," he said. "Goodnight, Nancy Drew. Give 'em hell."

She had an odd moment of awareness that would be the time for a kiss. Her skin prickled with the certainty Owen knew it, too. Nancy smiled shyly, and murmured, "Goodnight, Owen."

She walked to the garage slowly, putting together a conversation in her head. She could see things from Nick's side, and it made it hard to be really angry. He thought she was going to get locked up for investigating. She didn't want that, but she wasn't willing to pretend she could stop. He could be her backup or he could stand to the sidelines and let her get on with what she had to accomplish.

Even if some clues led to her father. Nancy had decided that when she was thirteen. Guilty was guilty, and extenuating circumstances didn't erase the crime. If she was part of her father's extenuating circumstance, it was even more valid she be the one to push for justice.

Nick could technically close up the shop at five and be done, but he often left it open for a while longer. The big garage door was open, and he was inside working on an enormous engine propped on wooden palettes. A chain came down from the ceiling, holding the weight. 

She knocked on the side of the door, waiting for him to ask her inside. He walked over, wiping his hands on a rag. "Hi. I didn't think you were talking to me," Nick said, his voice hurt. "I tried calling."

Lying would smooth over the day, but she knew she wouldn't forget he'd gone to her father instead of trying harder to talk to her. Nick wasn't shy about wanting to be acknowledged as her boyfriend, and she didn't want to reward his disregard of her wishes. 

"My phone was off. I was at a movie." She wouldn't lie about Owen, but she wouldn't bring him up and get off topic. 

"Okay." He was guarded. It was sad, and Nancy knew she wasn't warm with Nick at the beginning. She only had so much emotional endurance to go around. She needed a lot of it for herself. 

"You told my father what I've been doing," she said seriously. "That wasn't fair, Nick. I'm not going to stop. I thought you'd accepted that. I'm not trying to stop you doing what Tiffany wanted."

Nick deliberately went back to work, putting the engine between them. He glanced at her periodically, but mostly looked at what his hands were doing

"More is going on than I know. You're not saying everything. I used to be able to anticipate where to go to back you up, and now I'm not sure. I'm finding you helping Ryan Hudson and following ghosts and it's scaring me. I didn't know what else to do. I'd rather get dumped than know I stood back and you got hurt."

She didn't have the heart to lose more. "I don't want to dump you."

"I don't want to get dumped," Nick said, but his body language was too casual. "There's this whole extra thing I don't get. You're looking into Tiffany and then it's all about Lucy. And Lucy matters, absolutely, but why does she matter now?"

She'd never said it out loud. Carson Drew could be a murderer, or an accomplice. Kate Drew might have known. Her mother might have knowingly hidden him from the police, giving him an alibi and concealing evidence. But he was her father, and Nancy couldn't let the thought form into a real suspicion. It was a tangle in the net she was trying to make to catch a murderer. She wanted it to be an absurd worry that had an explanation. 

"Because when Lucy died, my father worked for the Hudson family fixing their troubles. Lucy dated Ryan back then, and she saw a few secrets," she said. "I don't think my father is a killer. I think he might have covered for one. And if he did, it was to protect his job so he could provide for his family. That means the responsibility passed on to me."

The half-truth went just far enough to make sense, even as it created a gnawing stomach ache Nancy ignored. 

"I see how that would make you feel the need to know," Nick told her. "Have you really thought about what it would mean if you were right? You'd be sending your own father to prison, Nancy. I know you're having some trouble getting along with him, but you don't want that. He's a good man."

"So he can testify and get immunity and the killer can be caught."

He shot a hard look at her, and his hands stopped for a moment before he returned to work. 

"That's a naive perspective, and I know you're too smart to believe it. You have to think about it realistically. If you succeed in what you're trying to find, will you ever be satisfied you have your answers? Everyone who's died is gone, and everyone who might have to pay is alive. That includes you, and it might be in a way you don't see coming."

Nancy leaned on the work bench, crossing her arms. "Can I ask you something about your past?"

He nodded. "It's hard to talk about, but I'll try," Nick said.

"Going back to the night of the party, if it happened in a way that could be kept secret, would you have been able to cover it up and live your life normally?"

She could see him go far inside his memory, his eyes drifting across the garage floor. It was clearly uncomfortable, and Nick tensed his jaw before he swallowed, and said, "Maybe for a while. I would have felt guilt, but the fear would have been a lot, too. I think anything can start to be normal, if the alternative is predictably worse."

Could she let this go, and let it be normal to fear her father had killed? Nancy almost wanted to go back to before she'd found the bloody dress, but the dress directed her to a lot of the other evidence. She wished it hadn't been in the attic, kept for some purpose Carson Drew seemed to value.

"Does it seem possible to keep a secret like that for years or decades? To hide it from a wife and children, just continually acting as if nothing happened?"

"I don't know. And if you're asking about your father, he's the only one who can say," Nick told her bluntly. "Do you really think you'll feel better if he told you what you're afraid of hearing?"

The anticipation of bad news was one version of horrible, and the initial hit of it a slap that widened and deepened into a suffering Nancy had to realize when her mother's diagnosis wouldn't stop being poor even after all the doctors weighed in. She didn't want it, but she knew it was there and couldn't stop her awareness from little jabbing reminders prodding her forward. 

Off a cliff, maybe just like Lucy, and doomed to repeat the whole chain of events in a pantomime. She made her own choices, but Nancy didn't trust her choices lately.

"I know I can't stop. I don't have any subtlety to spare. I'm putting my head down and plowing through. Consequences feel small next to giving up any sense of purpose. Who's to say I'm not meant to be doing this to expose anyone necessary?"

"Okay," Nick said, standing up to face her directly. "I'll put this to you. You know I killed someone, but do I feel like a killer to you?"

Any roughness came from her, and Nancy knew that about herself. She had been aggressive where Nick was patient and touched her sweetly. He looked for signals of her willingness, and faltered on any sound that wasn't obviously pleasure. His body roused and warmed for her prodding, and he gave what she asked with attentive tenderness. She had tried to distance herself with sex, and Nick found ways to convey his own mood. 

"You feel like a person. You've lived and done things you regret. What you went through made you angry, and you worked through it," Nancy said fondly. 

His minor easing in the set of his mouth made her keep talking, justifying herself too much. Some of it was just nonsense to feel better, to hear her own excuses. Nancy had thought they were going to fight about Owen, and now she wished for the problem to be Nick's jealousy. 

"If you hadn't been caught, maybe you'd still be angry and hiding it. There was a sense of peace in serving your time, and knowing you'd seen the worst of it, I thought. The lack of freedom temporarily implied the return of freedom for the rest of your life."

Nick had a way of looking disappointed in her, like he'd expected something reasonable and she'd spouted ignorance anyone with a little more life experience would be ashamed to voice.

"I think it's dangerous to say closure comes from discovery, Nancy. If you really believe your father did something awful to Lucy Sable, you'd have asked him by now. I think it's much more likely, just knowing the man a little bit, he ended up pulled into it through his job. That makes him another victim, and maybe the only person left who would get locked up for something a much richer, more dangerous person has done."

There was a good reason why judges and lawyers weren't usually related to the people standing trial. Unbiased opinions were needed when something as abstract as guilt or innocence was on the balance. Nancy couldn't expect a Hudson to turn on another Hudson, any more than she could easily point to Carson Drew as a killer. It was another little thing to convince her the least likely people did horrible things, pushing down guilt to protect their own loved ones from the justice that ideally should come next.

Nick was standing close enough to touch, his hands twisting and twisting at the rag he was holding. He waited until she met his eyes, speaking calmly but with that same edge of knowing better than her from his own travails.

"Your father would never blame you, but if what you do gets him in trouble you might blame yourself. I think you need him. I think he might be protecting the normal people of this town from the Hudsons and Marvins and all their resources. Maybe his actions you'd expose are the checks that keep this a safe place for everyone."

And maybe her father, her hero for most of her life, was only human. He'd been selfish about her mother's death, and let Nancy believe there was more time remaining with Kate. He valued his good name, and the professional reputation he'd built up. Nancy wanted to be convinced she was being silly, letting a few unrelated details aggrandize into a conspiracy. 

If her suspect was anyone else, she would have asked by now. But with her father, the risk was so much more because she loved him. Every rational impulse to use her brain had to separate her from the natural attachment to the first man in her life. She was losing her bond with her father, every denial a delay leaving her in a mental fog.


End file.
